Language and Communication

ASL is a visual language complete with grammar, structure, syntax, and nuances similar to any other language. There is a body of research that suggests that fluency in a signed language correlates with learning in schools, academic success and social development. It is the language of the Deaf community and it creates an opportunity for full accessibility for all students in our school setting to gain and benefit from content information in all subject areas and social experiences. ASD supports the acquisition of ASL as a content subject. Each position at ASD has a required level of proficiency that must be achieved on the American Sign Language Proficiency Interview (ASLPI) to ensure they have the skills to provide consistent and rich exposure to academic registers of ASL. For teachers, this ensures that staff can demonstrate a wide register of discourse and lead classroom discussions. For other staff, it ensures the ability to function in their assorted roles at appropriate levels in our environment. Students are also encouraged to use ASL creatively as a form of artistic expression in projects across the curriculum as this is an important element of Deaf culture. This is valued and encouraged at ASD. Encouraging our student’s pride and self-respect in their culture and language as members of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community is a critical element of our bilingual program.

Receptive and Expressive English skills through reading, writing, speaking, and listening are promoted at ASD as a part of the developmental bilingual program. ASL can be leveraged to build English competence. By doing this, the teachers will be expected to support the students’ English skills and bilingualism by comparing, contrasting, and analyzing structure of ASL and English, supporting the development of English vocabulary word knowledge through the use of fingerspelling, and building interactional skills through the use of ASL and English (e.g. through emailing, signing, speaking, texting, and writing). English vocabulary development across the curriculum is a large part of ensuring success for our students and we believe that in addition to the definition and use of vocabulary, they will also be learning how to use them in content including writing and speaking.

• Plan deliberately to incorporate exploration and practice of skills related to printed and spoken English or the understanding of printed and spoken English.
• Be attentive to all possible English language abilities (listening, speaking, finger reading, fingerspelling, writing, reading and keyboarding) and make sure that all are addressed throughout each curriculum unit.
• Model and explain elements of the English Language such as phonemic and phonological awareness, active listening when introducing vocabulary, and reading or writing with students.
• Use fingerspelling and signing in ASL to support these instructions. This deliberate planned exposure to the English language and providing links to things they already know will improve the students’ ability to generalize skills, and use and understand vocabulary.

Our ASD community works hard to make our environment fully accessible for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing students and staff. By encouraging the development of both languages, Deaf children can gain pride and the sense of value in their well-being. With this pride, they can take more risks and they can carry with them the confidence of who they are through whatever obstacles or opportunities they face in the future.